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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Evangelicals Surrender Too Much Ground to Darwin

As the battle between Darwinism and the Bible rages, some evangelicals have backed away from maintaining that Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals created in the way Genesis 2 relates:

“… the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. … So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”

In a just-published article from the Westminster Theological Journal, Westminster Theological Seminary professor Vern Poythress brilliantly explains why such a surrender is wrong biblically and scientifically. Poythress, with both a Th.D. and a Harvard Ph.D. in mathematics, is well-positioned to write about both theology and evolutionary theory. He has published 13 books, including Redeeming Science and Redeeming Sociology, and numerous scholarly articles. We post this new one with the author’s and WTJ’s permission.— Marvin Olasky, World Magazine (May, 2013)

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Alice, Have you considered an essay that ties much of the information together that you have written on Genesis, or creation (Gen.1-3)? As an Orthodox Christian I would be interested in understanding an orthodox approach to the beginnings of life. Maybe the work would be too much for an essay and transcend into a book. But just digging into the blog is too overwhelming and I just don't know where to start. Please forgive my poor understanding.Dave Abshear

There is no "Orthodox approach" to Genesis. Father Seraphim Rose (1934-1982) took a Young Earth view that the six days of creation ended about 6,000 years ago. He insists that the Fathers taught this, but that is not correct. St. Augustine did not believe that the days of creation were 24-hour days. Other Orthodox writers embrace evolution, or at least some aspects of Darwin's theory.

In my view, Genesis is not about the beginnings of life as much as it is about the origin of Messianic expectation. We find Christ our God and the Theotokos in Genesis 3:15, the "Edenic Promise." The bulk of Genesis is about Jesus' Horite ancestors, and most of the Bible is about Christ's appearing in the flesh and His work as the divine "Seed" who tramples down death, overturns the curse, and establishes an eternal kingdom.

As for a book, I recommend Fr. Eugene Pentiuc's book "Jesus the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible."